At the Gates of Gethsemane
by Already There
Summary: Clark knows the teenage boy found at Cadmus Labs isn't a weapon. He knows that the kid's not evil. He knows Conner deserves better than how he's been treated. Clark just doesn't know why Lex conceived him in the first place - Or why Clark has to be the one to love him.
1. Assurance

A/N: I have a complete trigger warning list on my tumblr, thepopculturejunky, with the extension /twigggassssssss. Only read it if you have things that trigger you to avoid spoilers.

This story is told in four parts, which are nearly completed and will be released regularly. I am also working on a sequel, release TBD. Please enjoy.

 **Chapter One: Assurance**

 _When I see the man who I once called my best friend, I see him just in my line of sight, just beyond the gates of Gethsame._

 _We could have ruled the world._

 _Gods among men._

 _Then I close my eyes and see him on the side of a country road, when he was still little more than a child and I finally grew up._

 _I had an argument with a girlfriend that morning. The check I wrote her still lay in tatters on the side of the car Clark Kent sat beside me in, glancing out the window and watching the fields fade to night in front of us._

 _"Your dad still bothering you?" Clark asked, squirming uncomfortably as if starting to regret avoiding math homework by riding with me when he could have watched Seinfeld re-runs and that new X-Files show._

 _"I don't want to talk about it."_

 _"Where're we going?"_

 _"I don't know. Away."_

She's a smart girl, I thought to myself, _one hand on the steering wheel, the other fingering a scrap of the check._ Keep the threat of a sex scandal over my head, get money from me for eighteen years instead of just enough for one medical procedure-

 _"LEX!"_

 _Clark grabbed for the steering wheel; a deer darted across the road; we spun off the road._

 _A moment latter my head sat on the wheel, Clark pulling it up to examine the blood pouring from my nose._

 _"I'm bleeding?"_

 _"You'll be fine."_

 _I sat up and cleaned the blood off my face, terrified but safe. Clark angrily left the vehicle to stand outside. I followed after a moment, leaning beside him on the car and staring into the blur of the Milky Way._

 _Clark was only fifteen years old at the time. Lots of people around there assumed he would become a farmer like his father, but I knew better._

 _I'll admit I would never have guessed he'd become a reporter._

 _But I cracked the other half._

 _"Close call."_

 _"You almost got us killed, Lex! What the hell is wrong with you?"_

 _I meant to argue, ask why he grabbed the steering wheel, how he managed to see the deer anyway-_

 _But I didn't. I had a moment of weakness instead. One that's haunted me to this moment._

 _My youngest child sleeps beside me, close enough to touch if not for a Plexiglas barrier, dreaming away the night in a psionic induced sleep._

 _"Goodnight," I whisper. He doesn't hear._

In Smallville, a teenager stands in her back yard, holding a punk in one hand and a bottle rocket in the other. "Bum a light, Lena?" A classmate of hers says, waving a joint in her face. The girl sighs and lights it with the punk, grabbing an empty beer bottle from his side and making her way to an empty spot away from the house.

"Let me show you something cool," She told them, placing the firecracker in the beer bottle and lighting the fuse with the punk, still holding everything in her hands.

If the explosive went off in her hand, she would have been hurt. Or maybe not. Maybe she would have thrown it away un time.

Clark Kent overheard her exchange, and therefore nobody will ever know.

"Hey!" The girl screams, ten feet in the air, her bottle rocket thrown into the sky and exploding overhead, far away from harm. She sees Clark holding her shoulders and scowls. "Don't you have someone else to harass? Tall, bald and evil?"

He puts the girl down while her classmates scramble away. "If I see any of you driving…" Clark begins to say, and the teens quickly stop in their tracks, intoxicated and terrified. One girl eventually raises her hand.

"Mr. Superman, sir?" She whispers. "I…I didn't drink, sir, I'm the designated driver."

Clark grabs the girl's hand and stares into her bloodstream. No weed, no alcohol. "Get them back safe. Text Lena when you drop them off, then again when you get home, all right?" The sober girl nods quickly and leads the others to her car in a sprint.

"Be careful, Lena. People care about you."

"You know my name?" She asks, before shrugging. "You would. Know your enemy."

 _Know your enemy._

The words don't faze Clark.

There were rumors, and the rumors spoke of the rich heir who ran the plant just outside the city. They say one of the Luthors, or someone very close to them, an _asset_ , met Lena's mother (at the time just a teenager) and fathered her little red haired child.

Clark knew Lex too well to doubt that the girl was his, though, as Bruce liked to point out, he never had any desire to preform a DNA test and couldn't know for sure.

Clark and Bruce can agree, however, that one of the Luthors orchestrated Lena's mother's murder fourteen years back. Clark suspects it's because she learned too much.

"Just small town rumors" Bruce would point out. Not because he doubted Clark, per say, but because (Clark secretly assumed) Bruce just liked lording the uncertainty over him.

Clark himself found the charred body of Lena's mother, after hearing her strangled sobs across town, the sick cries of a human burning from the inside…

Maybe before Clark Kent could call Lex Luthor a friend. Once, he would have named the man the best friend he ever had.

" _No one_ cares about me. Except you, I guess. You care about everyone apparently."

Her phone jingles. "Jojo and Vince dropped off."

Clark sighs and shakes his head. "I bet your grandparents love you," She shrugs. "Your mother cared about you; I know that," He tells her. She cocks an eyebrow. "I knew her," Clark explains. "We met when you were little, before I was Superman. And yes, you're right; I care about you too."

Lena can't determine if she should believe him or not, so she shrugs, playing with a dead firework on the ground "I guess I should thank you, so, thanks for not letting the bottle rocket blow my face up. See you later, Supes," She leaves the lawn to enter the house, but then stops as her phone jingles again. "Olivia and Mac are back. You want me to text you when I hear that Janie gets home?"

"I don't think I'm in your phone, Len," He says with a smile. "Just say it out loud. I'll hear you."

In the years to come, on the nights where he wondered if Fate or God existed, he wondered if saved his old classmate's daughter for a reason, if somehow…

He finished some business with The Justice League, heard Lena scream out the window that Janie's all right, flew home, took off his tights and climbed into bed, listening to his wife mumble something about how she loved him before she rolled over and fell asleep again.

Two hours later he awoke to her cursing at her phone's alarm. "Morning, Lois," he mumbled.

"This thing should know better than to wake me up on a holiday!" she screams, waving it at his face.

Just another day.

One that ended with him lying on the floor of the Fortress of Solitude, staring at the sky above him, then to a computer screen with diagrams of DNA from a stolen blood sample strewn across it, then back to the sky.

Clark spares a few moments to think _when_ Lex and Cadmus got the DNA to do this. The day last February, when he and Lois went to investigate one of his facilities and…

Or maybe it just happened during that lost day he had. Two months ago he simply forgot everything that happened and, though it terrifies him, never figured out why. The day he doesn't remember sits in the back of his head, festering, giving him this distant feeling that something important happened.

A cell phone rings from the table beside him, Lois's name flashing across the screen. He does not answer or move to pick it up.

The night's events play behind Clark's eyes like an old newsreel, broken, scratched and scattered, so he looks back at his phone for a distraction. Instead he sees fifteen frantic text messages. Most sent by a friend, Jimmy Olsen, about something distant and unimportant. Some are from Lois. He skips the rambling texts and taps on Lois's voicemail.

"Hey, Clark," She begins. "Just wanting to make sure you're all right...you usually text me when you're going to be this late, and when you don't it usually means something bad happened...I know you're not dead or anything, I would have heard, unless it was really bad, but then Perry would call...I'm sorry, I'm rambling," she mumbles quickly. "Just, if you have time, send me a message so I know that you're not lying in a ditch somewhere, okay Smallville? See you soon, hopefully. Bye."

He sighs and stands up, slipping his cape back on. He sends Lois a quick message back: "Not in ditch, be home soon," not wanting to leave but knowing he has too, flying over the world and watching the snow fade to trees, trees fade to fields and eventually the fields fade to a sprawling cityscape. Metropolis. He slips in the window, trying his hardest to not make a sound as he could hear that Lois had fallen asleep since calling him.

"'s that you or some creeper?" Lois mumbles, still half asleep.

"It's me," Clark whispers back.

"Szat's good. Otherwise I'd have'ta punch you in the balls." she continues. "And that'd hurt me more than you." She falls back asleep in moments. He exhales in relief that she did not ask if he was okay because then she might have found out he was not.

Lois's phone alarm goes off all to soon, so Clark shuts his eyes tightly and does not move. She wakes up and turns off the alarm, then turns to him. "Wake up, Smallville. Holiday's over. We got work today." But Clark does not move "You don't even need to sleep. Get up!" She commands, pulling him out of bed. "Are you okay, Clark?" She asks after getting a good look at him. "You look miserable."

"I'm fine," He tells her, putting on glasses, trying to find some clothes, trying to turn this morning normal. "I'm going to take a shower."

"You don't shower in the mornings," She tells him, crossing her arms and staring him straight in the eyes.

"I forgot last night," he responds. "I got back late."

"You showered at the Fortress last night." She shoots back.

"What's wrong with hygiene?" he snaps back while she rolls her eyes and leaves, wondering if she should call Bruce and ask what the hell happened last night.

Less than an hour later the two of them arrive at the Daily Planet. Their boss, Perry White, yells at Clark for something, and he apologizes and promises to never do it again, not remembering or caring what it was.

"Hmm..." Lois says, staring at her computer. He turns to her cubical. "Word on the street says there were some pretty intense 'fireworks' at Cadmus last night. Looks like the kind that explodes buildings. Heard anything from your 'Sources', Clark?"

"Heard the Justice League showed up," He tells her after a long moment. "Heard they found evidence of illegal activity there."

She rolls her chair across the floor, lowering her voice to a whisper "What kind of thing was it?"

"Not 'it'" Clark mumbles back, echoing the chastising voices from the night before. "He doesn't like being called 'it'"

"He?" Lois asks in surprise.

"Not here," He hurriedly deflects. "Later, I promise."

Anything to delay the call to Bruce.

A text message pings on his phone from Barry Allen. Reads 'he's at my sister in law's, with Wally'. Lois glances at the message and tries to read it; Clark's pretty sure she does.

Perry calls her into his office hours later, and he tries not to listen in, but cannot help but hear that she has to leave town for a few days to work on a story. "I suspect you heard that," She whispers ever so quietly as she sits back at her desk and begins to pack up her laptop.

"I'll miss you," he responds. They kiss. She leaves.

Clark does not need to speak of the clone until she returns.

At least, that's what Clark Kent believed.

In the end, he didn't blame the boy or Wally for what happened. In a strange way, he even felt the tiniest twing of relief when he saw that the Terror Twin's attack on a shopping mall in Central City had appeared on the news, showing Kid Flash and Superboy defend the shoppers from them.

Barry called him when the scuffle began to help him apprehend them, which they did, even though Clark didn't want anything to do with the boy, never even wanting to _see_ him again. At least now he would just have to defend, not explain.

Defend he did, because the media identified him as "Superboy " immediately, and of course linked him to Superman because he showed up without commenting, and expected to see the kid there, which to a news anchor is practically an endorsement. Clark would know.

His appearance became viral in minuets. By the time the police cuffed the Terror Twins to take them back to Blackgate to await trial, Lois had tried calling him three times and left a text message on his phone: 'What the Hell, Clark?'. As soon as he could leave, he flew back to Metropolis to find Lois pacing in their apartment.

"Hey, Lois," Clark started off nervously, knowing he could either be an adult about this or act like an idiot, but choosing to be an idiot anyway. "What did you call me about?"

"So," She begins after giving him another moment to reconsider his idiocracy, "Imagine my surprise when I saw this so-called 'Superboy' on the news. 'That's strange' I thought to myself. Then you show up and I expect you to ask him why he's wearing your costume from that time you over-bleached it in the wash, but instead you go about your day as if SOME KID WHO LOOKS JUST LIKE YOU DIDN'T SHOW UP OUT OF NOWHERE. Like, I don't know, maybe you were TOTALLY AWARE HE EXISTED?"

"I was going to mention him to you," he whispers after a moment.

"And when were you planning to do that? I'm your wife, Clark, if you had a kid I would have hoped you would have told me at some point."

"He's not," he corrects, leaving the room "Lois, if I found out I had a son I would tell you right away, you know that."

She does. And she knows she should've given him a moment to explain. She sits on the floor and wonders for the millionth time this week if she should call Bruce.

"Do you think it will ever heal?"

Lois doesn't know when Clark entered the room again, but he's here, lying on the bed. It could have been hours ago. There's a scar under the spot his hand lays, small but ugly, straight across his abdominals.

Lois shakes her head.

"They used the blood they gathered from me to…" Clark trails off and instead stares into the ceiling.

"That's where the Superboy kid came from?" She asks, already knowing the answer.

"They mixed my DNA with someone else's to stabilize it. I tested it. Came from…from…"

She looks up into his bright blue eyes and sees pure, uncut fear behind them. "Lex," She whispers.

The next morning, Lois curses at her phone when it wakes her up.

He circles around the planet, watching, waiting.

A man almost falls onto a train track on the way to work.

A little girl is almost attacked by a wild beast in a foreign land.

A dam almost breaks and destroys a village.

But the man doesn't fall.

And the girl isn't ravaged.

And a woman thanks him for saving her home.

By the time he's back in Metropolis, the coffee's done.

Clark pours some in a tumbler and grabs his laptop as Lois leads him out the door and towards the subway.

And Jimmy shows him some pictures.

And he writes.

And maybe he had lunch and maybe he helped out with a distant fire.

It's all starting to blend together, and Clark can't really focus quite enough on any of it.

At some point, Bruce calls and Clark jumps as if electrocuted back to life.

Clark wonders at that point if he should give the League the kid's DNA results. Maybe they would understand him, or maybe it would be relevant later on, or maybe lying to Bruce is just totally and utterly insane because he would find out somehow anyway and do…something, Clark guesses. Not kill him, of course, but make life even more unbearable than it already is, somehow.

Clark doesn't think he's crazy. He knows crazy. One of his best friends dresses up as a flying rodent and another tends to spout the values of both war and peace in the same breath. Hell, his own parents found a baby in a spaceship and decided to adopt it! And his best friend from high school decided to cook up their love child in a lab because of his strange as fuck infatuation with him…

Lois is pretty normal, most of the time. Maybe not. Good crazy, at least. She and Jimmy are good crazy at least.

And his old friend Pete hasn't done anything strange yet, and Lana, well, all right, he doesn't want to think about her because she'll have questions he doesn't want to answer soon enough, but she's not that bad either.

The odds of Clark's sanity aren't looking as good anymore, honestly. For a moment, he wonders about the kid is doing, if he's normal, if he's being taken care of.

But then his hairs stand on end and he has to grab the sides of his arms to stay balanced.

Clark answers the call and almost sighs in relief upon realizing the call has everything to do with the UN and nothing to do with the boy.

He doesn't tell Bruce about the DNA results.

 _I watch him soar across the Metropolis skyline, my old friend, my trusted confidant, my one and only equal._

 _He must die._

 _And I must be the one to kill him._

 _Desmond asked at one point how I thought I would succeed._

 _"How does one expect to destroy a god?" He asked._

 _"He's not a god," I snapped. "He's an just an alien, and we will find out how to kill him."_

 _My very first foray proved utterly disastrous. I was young then. I believed that a simple chunk of Kryptonite and a room filled with the radiation of a red sun, but he proved me wrong. I slipped Kryptonite gloves onto my hands and pounded him into the ground over and over again. But even without his powers, he had spent more time learning the strategies of a fighter than I._

 _Never mind. I will kill him eventually._

 _I then thought to myself that I would need an equal in strength to him. He would never kill this being, but I could make the creation kill him. I sent my blood soaked Kryptonite gloves to Cadmus Labs and commissioned a clone of him to be made so that I may send this clone to kill him Unfortunately, Project Match proved to be disastrous as the young clone could not be controlled adequately for the mission it would be tasked with._

 _Some men won't be killed by fists alone._

 _I told the Cadmus scientists that after further research, I discovered the problem with Project Match could be solved quite simply. They could use a bit of DNA from a human to stabilize the clone's mind, perhaps make it even more intelligent then the original._

 _I gave them a vial of my blood without saying who it belonged to and told them to use that for Project Kr, to conceive a perfect being built in my own image. His strength gave Project Kr powers beyond mortal men, while my intelligence gave him the capacity to keep up with the genomorph's demanding psychic curriculum properly. I had not seen true perfection before staring into the Project's eyes and seeing my own cold stare return from beyond his cobalt eyes. With his forcedly taken essence and my own genetics, I created a being who could rule this world._

 _Until the Project escaped with the Justice League's dumb brats._

 _No matter. My son will return eventually._

Clark didn't want to tell anyone about his missing day, but after the boy showed up he thought it best he tell J'onn at least. He's closer to Bruce and trusts him so much more, but considering the swelling harassment he's been getting from him, asking more and more often if he's talked to the kid yet, Clark decides that if he has to tell someone from the League, he might as well tell the one person who may help him get those hours back.

"You don't like mind reading," J'onn tells him after Clark's finished telling him about his missing day. "I don't have to go inside your head to tell that you are desperate."

"Do it and do it quickly then," Clark responds. J'onn nods.

In a matter of moments, the Martian reaches into his mind. Clark closes his eyes and grabs the side of the chair, holding his breath and bracing himself for invasion.

Clark doesn't particularly like the feeling of someone poking around in his mind, but he knows it's necessary and thankfully it's over soon. "I can't find anything." J'onn tells him.

"Fuck," Clark whispers under his breath. He stuffs his face into his hands and grabs his hair. "What was I _doing?_ "

J'onn frowns sympathetically. "I can't do anything else."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. Thanks anyway," Clark tells him, leaving the Watchtower with the same feeling that he forgot something important.

That night, Clark gets another call he's been dreading. Lois leans over as he eats dinner and glances at the name on the screen. "Do you want me to tell her you left your phone here?" Lois asks, her finger hovering over the answering button.

He shakes his head and answers the phone, placing it on speaker so he doesn't have to touch it.

"Hello Lana," He says quietly.

"How old's Superboy?" Lana asks him sharply, not bothering with the pleasantries.

"I didn't cheat on you, Lana," He mumbles. "And he's not my son."

Clark can practically hear her eyes narrowing through the phone. "Who's son is he then?" She asks harshly.

"Honestly, none of this is your business," Clark digs his fingers into his scalp in frustration. "I didn't get some other girl knocked up when we were dating."

"Well, excuse me for jumping to conclusions," She snaps. Clark hangs up on her.

"Lovely woman," Lois says after a moment.

"You thought he was my son too."

"I didn't accuse you of _cheating_ on me. And I admit, I was angry I had to find out about him from _TMZ_ of all places."

Clark opens his mouth to accuse her of wanting to break the story herself before controlling himself and turning back to his food. "I'm sorry."

"Me too," She responds after a moment. "Mutual fuckup, all right?" Clark nods. "Honestly I think the kid got the worse end of all of this. Have you talked to him?"

"No. Not really. I've heard he's been making friends. Getting an okay grip on his powers."

"Hm. Maybe you should call him or something."

"Yeah, yeah maybe I'll drop by The Cave tomorrow."

But as Clark clears the table and watches the water spill over the plates, he knows he won't go see the boy tomorrow. Clark pours some soap on the sponge and hopes Superboy does well enough with Batman's team that Clark never has to see him again.

Clark's mother calls him eventually, of course, asking why he hasn't visited, or called, or liked any of her fucking _Facebook_ posts lately. Well, Clark thinks that last one was her idea of a joke. Mostly.

"I'm liking your pictures right now, Mom," Clark assures her, clicking through a slideshow of pictures from her friend's 65th birthday of all things.

"Clark, that's not really the issue. Is this about that Superboy that's been in the news? Does he have anything to do with you?"

"Can't believe Mrs. Trent is 65, she still looks so young," Clark muses, avoiding the question.

"If this is about a mistake you made _years_ ago then honestly, Clark, I can't really get mad at you for something that happened sixteen years ago."

 _Lana was bad enough,_ Clark thinks to himself. _I didn't knock up some girl back in high school and not tell you and Dad. Teenage-me was terrified of setting cheerleaders on fire when they practiced at the same time as the football team. Teenage-me wasn't really physically capable of sex, to be honest._

"No, that's not what happened," Clark tells her instead. "I have to go. Somebody needs me."

It wasn't a lie.

It never is.

As Clark soars across the skyline, racing to get to the wildfires devastating California, he remembers being a teenager. He almost feels the fatigue of a night spent staying up late watching asinine TV with Lana and Pete wash over him, until at last he smells a whiff of gasoline and remembers leaning against the window of Lex's sports car, watching the corn fields blur in front of his face as they sped through across the long Kansas highway, racing the sunset.

"Your dad still bothering you?" Clark asked.

"I don't want to talk about it," Lex told him, speeding up the tiniest bit, not meeting Clark's eyes. Clark sat up slightly as Lex missed the exit into town.

"Where're we going?"

"I don't know. Away," Lex mumbled as he accelerates more, hitting 90 miles per hour.

A deer darted onto road just farther away than a normal man could see; "Lex!" Clark screamed, reaching towards the steering wheel. Lex slammed on the breaks, almost throwing the two of them out the window as the animal ran away.

"Close call."

"You almost got us _killed_ , Lex! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Lex pulled over, cut the engine and sat in silence for a moment. "Do you think I'd be a good father, Clark?"

"Not if you keep driving like this-"

"I'm being serious," Lex snapped, shutting Clark off. "My own father was such an asshole to me. You know what they say about kids who grow up with bad parents."

"You're a genius," Clark stressed after a long, confused pause, "You know better than that, and you're the most determined person I know. You won't let that happen to your own kid, Lex. Worse you'll do is spoil them," Clark adds lightly. "And if you ever need to know if, I don't know, a yacht is an appropriate seventeenth birthday present, you can ask **me** about that."

Lex laughs weakly.

"Why are you worrying about this?" Clark asks. "Trust me, Lex. I know you'll love your kid if you had one, and that's already so much more than your dad did for you."

 _"_ They'll have the infinitely wise ramblings of Uncle Clark too, I gather," Lex stares into the abyss as he speaks, his mind so very far away.

"Any kid would be lucky to have you."

 _The kid's lucky he'll never see you again,_ Clark thinks briefly as he watches the destruction below him.

Clark saw him again in August, on a bridge collapse. He sees the kid and something in his face, his expression, maybe his eyes just _screams_ of Lex and Clark gets angry, so very angry for no good reason.

Maybe it's just because the kid's here, in Metropolis.

Because when Clark and the boy are apart Clark can say to himself over and over again that none of this is the boy's fault, none of it at all, and that the very least Clark can be _kind_ to the kid.

But then he sees him and it's so very different when a teenager looks back at you with your face but with the glance or the mannerisms or the raw anger of your psychopathic former best friend, and in that moment it's so much more visceral.

He sees Bruce that day too, in a diner his old friend Bibbo runs. Bruce tells him the kid needs his father, and Clark so dearly wants to tell him that just because Bruce needs something doesn't mean everyone does. Just because you're a crazy man with a batsuit that _somehow_ got himself into the Justice League, and just because you own probably over half of Gotham, doesn't mean that the entire world needs to be shaped into your admittedly warped image.

Instead, Clark leaves.

(Bruce is right. The boy needs someone).

(The Kid has Bruce. Red. Dinah. People who can look Lex in the eye without their skin crawling across their bodies).

Bibbo calls Clark that night. "I wanted te' make sure that the rich fella wasn't bothering you," Bibbo tells him, and Clark carefully skirts around his words not to lie to the diner's owner. Bibbo's a friend, and, even though Clark sometimes has to, he hates lying to friends.

"I can handle Bruce, Bibbo. Don't worry about me."

"Well, if you need a former boxer to take on some prissy little rich guy-"

"I'll call you, I promise."

Bibbo pauses. "What was he bothering you about?"

"He was just putting himself into other people's business, that's it."

Bibbo pauses again before steeling himself, asking if he should speak, and then blurting out the question he's been pondering since that afternoon.

"Is the kid he was taking about really your's?"

Clark sighs before sitting down on the couch. "It's complicated."

"Ter be honest, Clark, the only answers are 'Yes,' 'no,' and 'I haven't taken a paternity test yet.' Not that complicated."

Clark knew the boy was "his", as far as any paternity test was concerned, but he couldn't say he had a son because the kid just wasn't. And yet…

"I guess he's my biological child," Clark settles. "I don't - we've barely spoken, the two of us have just met. And his other parent wasn't … wasn't that great a person."

Surprisingly, Bibbo says nothing. Clark thinks it's the first time he's heard the man get that quiet so fast. "Did you want it?" Bibbo asks briskly after an uncomfortable silence. Clark doesn't even know how to answer this, and wonders if Bibbo would ask that question if he knew he was Superman, if as Clark Kent he didn't throw every single downfall and insecurity on display to protect the truth. He says nothing, leading Bibbo to state "You know, I usually try and avoid hitting a woman, but if she's a real bad piece of work I can make an exception-"

"I can handle it," Clark responds quietly, switching to his ear piece and sliding against the wall to bury his head in his arms.

"Hmm. Guess you want me to keep quiet"

"Lois and Bruce know, but not many others. So yeah, that would be great."

"Good luck to you and your kid, Clark," Bibbo eventually sighs. "Bring him by if he's ever in town, okay?"

"All right, Bibbo, I will."

 _I killed for the first time just over fourteen years ago. Sometimes I forget it happened, I managed to carry it out so smoothly. I pick-pocketed her father's wallet at her high school graduation and, feigning panic, gave it to Lana Lang, telling her to call the young woman's parents to come pick it up. Then I rode with Mr. and Mrs. Kent to Clark's house, an alibi, helping them to set up for the graduation party. Her parents had Lena with them, so I knew she would be safe._

 _The house exploded upon her entrance._

 _Sometimes I forget about the murder._

 _But I never forget about the aftermath. Clark Kent knew, from the moment his ears caught the sound of the explosion, the moment he held the charred body of a classmate in his arms, that someone tore her life away. Sometimes I wish he never found out who killed her, but mostly I wish he understood why I did, understood that this woman threatened to tear down everything I planned to build, the world I would create, just by holding my flesh as ransom._

 _All evidence lead to a gas leak. The FBI came to town and investigated; they called it an act of God._

 _The day after Clark testified to the police against me, with words held too close he stood at the front of his parent's farm , arms crossed, bright blue eyes obscured through translucent lenses._

 _"I don't want to see you again, Lex," He told me, voice filled with venom and acid._

 _I reach for his shoulder "Clark-" but he grabs my arm a bit too tight._

 _"No," Clark yells in disgust. "Get away from me," he spits, "You murdered someone, Lex!"_

 _I knew Clark would never believe my lies._

 _But -_

 _I hoped he just wouldn't care._

The nights grow colder and longer and Clark receives a message from J'onn, which turns out to be simply an attachment of the kid's school forms and a short note. "Conner Kent" it reads, formerly homeschooled, age 16, grade 11, taking American Literature, Pre-Calculus, AP U.S. History, AP Physics, Spanish 5, Introduction to Photography. Received Hepatitis B shot, received yearly health examination, faked doctor's forms, faked placement tests, parent/guardian: Clark Kent, Student ID picture.

Clark doesn't read his own name, though, because before finding the blanks it might sit in he looks at J'onn's note. The message reads: "Please send corrections. Need: middle name, what else? Batman can fabricate needed documents."

Clark doesn't send the corrections either.

That day, Jimmy corners him in an elevator.

"Hey CK," he says excitedly, barely slipping in through the doors. "I wanted to know if you've talked to Superman about that Superboy kid? 'Cause Perry wants more pictures of him and I was wondering if Superman would like, answer questions about him? Lois told me that Superman told _her_ that Superboy's off limits, but I caught her at a bad time, and want to just make sure."

Clark starts wiping his hands on his pants, trying to find an excuse, until one finally collides with him at the speed of light.

"Superboy's a minor," Clark blurts out way too fast. "Superman's not going to give the press information about a kid."

"Danm it, I should've known. Great, now I just have to get _him_ to say that to me."

Clark groans internally. "Good luck with that."

"You should get drinks with us Friday. Haven't seen you around much."

"Stuff's been going on," Clark mumbles.

"Which is why you need alcohol. Friday. I'll see you and Lois at 8."

That night he makes sure to strategically place himself near Jimmy's place and cause enough of a scene that Jimmy can rush over and ask him about Superboy, which Clark answers, almost word for word what he said earlier that day.

"Are you sure you can't say anything?" Jimmy begs.

"Jimmy, aren't you a photographer?" Clark asks, exasperated.

"Yeah, but I also have to listen to Perry complain about how useless his other reporters are-"

"He's just a kid, Jimmy. Wait a few years and I'm sure he'll tell you whatever he wants himself."

Clark's a journalist; he knows in a matter of time even his lack of answer will end up across Twitter but doesn't care. That's tomorrow's problem.

A/N: Sooooooo small cannon mix-up. For some reason I remembered Wally and Conner wearing uniforms, not civvies, while defeating the Terror Twins in the spin-off comics. Which is weird. Cause it didn't happen. They were dressed like fuccboi farmers.

Tried to fix it. Liked the story better without fixing it. Said "fuck you cannon, it's just a spinoff comic no one but me and five other people read anyway". So that's a bit of behind the scenes information.


	2. Question

A/N: I got so excited last night - there were 6 reviews on my fic! Unfortunately, they were all just the incoherent spam manifesto of a weirdo copy/pasted from somewhere else :/ I deleted them, so you all don't have to read it. At least this spam was creative. Onto the chapter!

* * *

Lois Lane doesn't have time to dwell on all the horrible shit that's happened to her.

If she did, she's sure she'd go psychotic - like _some people_ she knows - and she doesn't really have time for that either.

Maybe if Lois was anyone else she would have let her world shatter around her.

But she's not anyone else -

She's the person who looks around at the people who surround her on a day-to-day basis, thanks God that she's not them, and tries to find out the rich or powerful monsters that are fucking them over.

 _"Newest Gossip in from America's Heartland! Does The Man of Steel have a secret lovechild? We've asked paternity expert Dr. Gleeson to find out!"_

"Jimmy, can you turn that crap off?" She asks the photographer when she finally ends a long phone call with a LexCorp source and meets up with him in his Washington D.C. hotel room on just any other largely normal abnormally hot July day (just a normal day, she reminds herself).

 _"Well, we can't tell anything for sure without a DNA test, I mean I can't even give a professional opinion with this little."_

"Lane, look, Superman has a kid!"

Lois rubs the palm of her hand over her face before looking at the television screen to see a blurry picture of a kid that _could, possibly_ look like he could be related to her husband. "Jimmy, this has literally happened five times already."

"Yeah, but this one has superpowers!"

"So did two of the others! Lots of people have superpowers! Remember that expert who says something like a half a percent of the human race have superpowers but most of them are boring, like they're able to detect carrots or something, so we don't notice?"

Lois changes to CNN, which is also covering this story, though a little less sensationally. _"The two young vigilantes seem to have their faces covered by a handkerchief of some sort - possibly they forgot their uniforms in their gym lockers?"_

The news anchors laugh to themselves while Lois squints at the screen, watching a speedster and a young strongman type take down a pair of young supervillians. The youngest speedster of that magnitude (that she knew of) is Kid Flash; the speedster is probably him. She racks her brain trying to remember who the other boy would probably be, but quickly stops as soon as footage shows Clark arriving. He'll tell her when she next calls him.

 _"You know, a lot of people have been speculating that Superman might have some relation to one of the young kids, Don."_

Lois rolls her eyes as her phone rings, the name _Bruce Wayne_ flashing across the screen. "I have to take this, Jimmy."

"Are you watching the news?" He asks her angrily, forgoing any pleasantries. "Where's your husband? Are you with him?"

"There's nothing on the news, Bruce; they just think Superman fathered a secret lovechild with an Australian hooker again."

"Shit," He curses, before cutting himself off abruptly. She can almost hear his eyes narrowing. "Where's Clark? Is he with you? Have you talked to him since the Fourth? Who's the hooker?"

"Bruce, I'm in DC right now, and, unlike what I'm sure you would do to _your_ significant others, I don't place GPS trackers on people I care about."

Bruce rarely appreciated Lois's humor while in "Detective Mode". This was no exception. "The press is getting too close to the truth and Clark's not being particularly helpful on his end when it comes to damage control."

"Bruce, the press _thinks Superman has a secret kid._ There's nothing on the news, I swear."

Silence. "You should really talk to your husband," he says, before the 'Beep, beep!' of the hang-up button rings.

"Shit," Lois mumbles, scrolling through her contacts trying to find someone who could give her more information. She texts Clark 'weird call with Bruce, something about needing to talk to you? Call when you can' before settling on Diana's number and dialing her.

"Is this about the shopping mall thing? The League is on it," She rambles to Lois before she has a chance to speak.

"No, this is more of a 'my husband is apparently not telling me about something Batman assumes I should know about' type of thing. Is Clark okay? Did you all replace him with a robot or something?"

Diana doesn't speak right away. "Did he perhaps mention something about Cadmus, or last Sunday, by chance?"

"Is this about the lab explosion? He didn't finish telling me about that, no, but he did mention something happened there."

"Why not you tell me everything you know about the explosion and I'll fill you in on the rest?"

"Basically, I know the lab exploded. And that's it."

Silence again. "Actually, Clark can just explain it to you. Trust me. It's better that way," Wonder Woman quickly blurts out before hanging up on her as well.

Lois has no idea what to think about any of this.

So she re-enters Jimmy's hotel room and listens to the 'Expert' on TMZ babble about…whatever. _"Yes, augmented powers such as those have been known to be passed genetically, from father to son, in humans…I wouldn't know anything about Kryptonians, as I've never studied one."_

Lois is smart enough to know that the kid on the TV screen has something to do with Clark; the League wouldn't care otherwise. She's also almost certain that the teenager looks too old to actually be Clark's in the tradition sense, as he would have had to have been, what, fifteen when he was born? He told her he lost his virginity when he was about twenty on multiple occasions.

But she doesn't know why he won't just tell her what's going on.

Lois Lane doesn't have time to dwell on all the horrible shit that's happened to her, but she does take a moment to remember one thing, one small moment eighteen weeks ago that could've rightfully destroyed a woman who wasn't numb to death by now.

She shouldn't be in DC today, just as Clark shouldn't have been investigating that lab explosion a few days ago.

So, whatever happened on the Fourth of July, her husband is already forgiven. She hates that he didn't just _tell_ her what's going on, but because it was this week, he's forgiven…

* * *

It's almost winter now and Clark gets a message on the communicator about a dire issue with The Team and reluctantly goes to the cave; he expects it at first to be another ploy from Bruce until he spots a group of teenagers lying, apparently asleep, in the training room. Psychic training, he's told, supposed to be routine, any ideas?

Clark doesn't know anything of use and quietly shakes his head, not saying a word to the others. They return to brainstorming as Clark glances over at Conner and the wolf draped around him.

The boy might die.

He didn't want that. He couldn't see him as his son, but he did _care_ about the damn kid. Even if this boy wasn't _his_ child he was _a_ child, more or less, a child the Bruce let love him when he shouldn't have. If Conner died…Clark didn't think he could forgive himself if that happened.

Conner has only lived for seven months old, but _physically_ he could be Lena's age.

And before Lena Summers was born, Clark Kent made a promise.

When the others aren't looking he touches the boy's shoulder and whispers "Wake up, all right?" Clark doesn't know what Conner thinks of him now, but maybe if he can hear or feel him it's a positive enough feeling to keep him alive.

 _I didn't know why Match didn't work until I examined his DNA, broken and destructed with kryptonite radiation._

 _I wondered about slicing in human DNA to fill in the gaps._

 _The creation would still be flawed, random, imperfect._

 _But if we took the best of Clark and combined it with my drive…._

 _My heart sped with the possibilities. Get blood not touched by Kryptonite. Take the strongest genes from him with the strongest genes from me. Raise him away from Clark's altruistic tendencies._

 _Create the perfect son from the man who could have been the perfect ally._

 _I paused the project to obtain a new sample. Fresh blood. Clean blood._

"How's Roy doing?"

Oliver and Clark sit on the side of a building in Star City eating Big Belly Burgers just a week after that horrible problem with the psychic training; Oliver and Dinah feared nuclear weapons in their city and called for Clark to find them and destroy them if necessary. Thankfully the city is clean.

"Just be glad you don't have to deal with any-" Oliver quickly cuts himself off and bites into his sandwich. "He' 'ooining 'ine," Oliver mumbles through a mouthful of hamburger.

"You've been helping with the Team's training," Clark begins, deciding that since he's already made it awkward he might as well get an update on all the kids. "How are they coming along?"

"Dinah does most of it, but yeah, I've been there a few weekends. They've been learning a lot. Even Conner, though he and Dinah both think he would learn more if…well, you've heard enough of that from Diana and Bruce."

Oliver sighs and shakes his head. "They're being idiots. Dinah wanted me to tell you that she gets it - I do too. She's trying to help him figure all this out," Then Oliver started laughing.

"What?" Clark asked.

"Nothing. It's nothing, I swear. I shouldn't even tell you this…" Oliver continued laughing. "It's not funny. But it is; it's hilarious. So we found footage of my wife, um, having inappropriate relations with a student during training sessions. But it was really just Megan using her shape shifting powers to do some freaky role play," Oliver burst into laughing again, but stopped upon seeing Clark's confused face. "Oh right, Megan and Conner. That's why this is relevant."

"He's making friends at least, then?" Clark asks after a moment.

"That's an understatement," Oliver gasps before falling into hysterics further. "Dinah was pissed; I mean, I know it's kind of, well, fucked up, but kids are too horny to think about that kind of thing, you know? Raging hormones and all that; Anyway, if this is the only moral conduct she and Bruce need to correct, I think they're all going to be fine, upstanding citizens. Eventually."

 _Considering how bad a Luthor normally turns out-_

Clark sat in silence, resisting the need to dig his nails so deep into his skin that he would begin to bleed, oscillating between reminding himself that Lena is careless but _good_ and wishing he had never called Conner a Luthor in the first place.

"You look like you've been thinking about Luthor," Lois states, still awake although she attempted to sleep hours ago, as Clark comes home that night.

"Have you?"

Of course she has, Clark thinks after glancing at her for less than a moment. He knows sometimes Lois wonders what would have happened if she hadn't reached towards him on that night in February (an instinct, just an instinct, she tells herself). Maybe Lex wouldn't have panicked and shot her. Maybe things would be different for everyone.

"I had a source who said she could tell me something sketchy about LexCorp's weapon manufacturing division. She backed out this morning. I got her to tell me Lex threatened her children. He knows I'm onto him again. Almost got him this time."

"I'm sorry."

"Tell me about the League. What are they doing?" she meant to distract the two of them, but Clark stumbles over his words and shrugs.

"Diana's arguing with her mom and the rest of the Themiscyraian generals. Again," he informed her softly.

"Oliver?"

"Dealing with that kid. Roy."

"Captain Marvel? Wait, do you know his name? You don't have to tell me," She corrected quickly, but he shook his head and shrugged.

"He never talks about himself."

"What about Arthur?"

Clark froze again before continuing to unpin his cape. "Mera's pregnant," He told her after a moment.

"Oh," She responded in surprise. "Tell them congratulations then."

"I did."

"You think the two of them would've been friends or something?" Lois asks him absently, after a long silence, not really expecting him to answer. "If we ever introduced them?"

He doesn't answer.

"Did you ever want an older brother or sister as a kid?" Clark asks instead.

"Would've been nice, I guess. Lucy was annoying though," Lois mumbles, referring to her younger and only sister. "Probably would have thought anyone else was too."

Neither one got to sleep until much later; as the sun neared rising and Lois's phone alarm counted away the final moments until it could force them awake again.

 _The day her mother refused the money for an abortion I almost told Clark that Lena was mine. That late night, pulled over on the side of the highway after almost killing an animal, after Clark told me any child of mine would be so very lucky (a fact I hate myself for doubting now), I intended to tell him._

 _"Would_ you _love them?" I asked instead._

Clark wonders, wonders a _lot_ , whether the only thing standing between a normal child and a psychotic vigilante is a gun in an alleyway or whether Gotham's Blue Bloods are just horribly inbreed and _something_ would have set Bruce off eventually. Then he sighs, leans back in his seat and turns to the boy sitting in the passenger side, wondering what his excuse is. Diana and the others think Bruce coerced him into doing this…this _thing_ after the kid's parents died, but Clark suspects that Bruce took the boy in to keep his guts from painting Gotham's sidewalks after Dick inevitably went after the mobster Tony Zucco himself.

None of that matters now. What matters is that Robin (not Dick Grayson, not today) sits in his car, combat boots on the dashboard, energy bar in hand and unwrapped and staring out the windshield, boredly taking a bite after somehow getting in the car without Clark noticing.

"Bruce is here on a business trip," Robin mumbles, looking off into the night. Clark says nothing. "At the next League meeting, tell Barry that his _Lightspeed_ bars suck. Too much whey and stevia. I know refined sugar is supposed to be bad, but these things taste awful."

"Barry just sponsors them. The chocolate ones are palatable. Just if Wally offers you them again. Take chocolate."

"Yeah, you always have the best advice, Clark," Robin says offhandedly, almost sarcastic, and still distant. "Conner spit out the white chocolate raspberry flavor one when Wally brought them to training last week," Robin continues, eyeing Clark for signs of a weakened emotion. His hands only clench slightly on the wheel.

"Smart kid," Clark says after a moment. "You don't want to eat those. They taste awful."

"Conner said that Lightspeed bars taste like monkey cum. We asked him why he was sucking monkey cock when he hates monkeys so much," Robin continues, testing Clark, seeing if he could maybe just _shock_ him into a reaction to Conner, but instead Clark clenched wheel again and gave Robin a half disturbed, half amused sideways glance. Robin carefully twists the extra wrapper and slides the bar back into his utility belt, staring back out the window as Clark merges onto the highway.

"Conner's like one of my best friends. I haven't known him for very long, but he's part of my team now, and you have to be friends with your teammates. You have to trust them," Robin rambles on, barely looking at Clark now. "And when my friends need help, I try and figure out how to help them, even when I don't know what to say…" And now Clark knew why Robin sat in the passenger seat of his car, feet on the dashboard, eyes looking through a thin domino mask into the oblivion of the night. If he didn't know the kid as well as he got to over the last four years, he would think that Bruce had sent him here to guilt him again.

Instead, Clark looks onto the highway and speaks quietly, in even tones but a quivering voice, clenching the steering wheel so strongly he hears the tiniest _crack_ of it beginning to shatter. "Conner needs friends like you and the team."

"He needs you too," Robin tells him.

"Batman thinks he does too. But he doesn't really, Robin. He has Red Tornado, Canary, all the others. He has you and the rest team," Clark begins to explain, but his words slowly fade away into the night as he exits towards _The Planet_. "I'm dropping the car off. Lois needs to use it. Do you need me to drop you off at your hotel first? Or a safe house?" Robin shakes his head and turns away again, refusing to acknowledge Clark despite riding in his car. Clark stops the car, sighs for the umpteenth time tonight and pulls the boy into a reluctant side hug. "I know this is hard on Conner, and you, to some extent. But you two can make it through-"

Robin shoves him off and angrily and scowls. "Then stop making this hard on us, Clark! Hell, you don't even need to go to Happy Harbor, just pick up your damn phone and call him for a few minutes! You're his _dad_ , Clark! Of course he needs you! Why are you being a jerk! You're a _good g_ uy, aren't you?" But Robin does not wait for him to answer, instead throwing open the door and running off, leaving Clark to wonder how one explains to a twelve year old boy who's parents died before his eyes that Clark and Conner could never be anything to each other.

(Clark couldn't even explain that to himself).

"Anyway, I'm probably going to Quarac later this week. Perry needs someone to go."

"Yeah," Clark nods distractedly while his wife talks in the elevator on the way to their office. She stops talking to take a sip of coffee briefly before continuing.

"I mean, unless some other idiot wants to get shot at."

Clark thumbs through his messages until, of course, finding one from Bruce.

"You should call him before he gets pissed at you again," She suggests to Clark's annoyance.

"Bruce," Clark says into the phone as he gets to his desk. "What do you need?"

"I'm sending Superboy and Miss Martian to Quarac to handle Queen Bee. Is The Planet sending anyone to cover that? I'll tell those two to look out for them."

"Wait, you're doing what?" Clark asks, waking up the rest of the way. "Why the hell are you sending two teenagers to Quarac all alone?"

"They're not going to be alone; they're staying with a woman M'gann knows."

"You should send Kaldur and Dick with them, at least."

"They'll be fine."

Clark angrily throws his phone on his desk, nearly breaking it. "Lois, I need to talk to Perry," he tells her as he storms into Perry's office, not waiting for her answer.

"Perry, I need to cover the Quarac beat."

"Huh?" Perry asks, slightly bemused that one of his reporters ran into office demanding to be sent to a violent country. "Yeah, as long as Lois doesn't want it. Bring Jimmy."

"Thanks," Clark tells him, running off. "Jimmy!" Clark yells into the bullpin, trying to find the photographer. "We're going overseas."

"Great!" Jimmy yells. "What country? Should I bring my swim trunks?"

Clark doesn't answer, instead kissing Lois on the top of the head. "I'm taking the Quarac assignment. Going home to pack. I love you."


	3. Answer

**AN: ¡** Hola! Aquí es tu capitulo nuevo, Capitulo Tres: La Respuesta. Yo trabajaba muy duro en este capitulo. Yo espero que te guste. Yo estoy muy feliz porque yo estoy usando este idioma me pasaba todo el verano estudiando, finalmente. Mi español todavia no es buena. Ah bueno.

* * *

"Clark, I don't want to go to Qurac. I hate Qurac."

"Not my choice to bring you."

"Last time I was there, Al Qaida almost kidnapped me."

"That's not what happened. At all."

"Clark, _if I go to Qurac the terrorists win."_

"Right," Clark rolls his eyes and turns to Jimmy. "One: Al Qaida is not in the region we're going to at the moment. Two: No."

"I'm going to die in some cave with Osama bin Laden pointing a gun at my head!" Jimmy pants as Clark nervously looks around to make sure no one hears him and decides to land the plane because the photographer was loosing his shit over Al Qaida. The flight attendants are busy. He looks back at his book.

"Osama bin Laden's not going to kill you. Personally."

"Great, Clark, that makes me feel so much better."

"Don't worry Jimmy, I'll protect you."

The two men sit in silence as Jimmy slowly breathes in and out.

"Clark?"

"Yes?"

"How exactly are _you_ going to protect me from terrorists?"

Clark doesn't answer.

The reality of his situation doesn't hit Clark until he's in the rental car, driving to Marie Logan's animal sanctuary. "We're doing a side piece about this C-List celebrity who built a wild animal sanctuary after her husband died in addition to the Queen Bee thing."

"Why?"

"Because we're here and _The Planet_ isn't going to send someone separate out to do it."

"Yeah, thanks smart ass," Jimmy snaps back. "Why are we doing a story about this in the first place?"

"Cute animals get more shares than evil dictators."

Clark's nervous.

Of course he is.

He and Jimmy are silent the rest of the way to the animal sanctuary.

Thankfully, Jimmy's too scared of Al Queda to notice that Clark's facing his own terrors in Quarac.

There's something odd about seeing Conner, still wearing his black House of El shirt and walking around the house with M'gann and Marie Logan's son, away from everything to do with Superman, the team and his need to prove himself.

The kid seemed…calm almost.

Still angry, of course, but it didn't seem to bother him out here.

It's the first time they've had a conversation (a _real, actual_ conversation) and every word lies in half truths.

 _"Call me Clark,"_

It's his name, the only name he's always felt comfortable using, but not the name Conner knows him by.

 _"This is my daughter, Megan."_

Clark doesn't know who M'gann's mother is, but he knows, if she's even still alive, the woman's miles away from here, wondering everyday if her daughter's safe on this strange, warm planet.

Or maybe not.

Maybe M'gann's mother doesn't give a fuck about her and this woman here is the only one who's ever treated M'gann as her child.

Clark Kent doesn't ask.

(Though Superman did ask J'onn if M'gann had any other family to comfort her shortly after Marie Logan died)

He gets enough information for the profile, and then _talks_ to Conner, actually finds out that he has a life, a girlfriend, people who care about him from his own lips. He even offers Conner a ride to the speech, but the kid declines. Clark can't help but be a little relived.

Until M'gann corners him and tells him she know's he's Superman, because of _course_ she recognizes a face she's not only seen a thousand times before but trusted with her love, her secrets, her _life._

It doesn't hurt that she's a smart kid too.

They all are.

She creates as psycholink and says -

M'gann says…

M'gann says ( _thinks)_ a lot of things to Clark.

She recognizes him when Conner doesn't, because Conner doesn't even keep _mirrors_ in his room and can't even recognize his own face properly, because of course Conner sees Clark in himself, Clark is the only one who sees Lex Luthor in that identical face…

Clark promises M'gann he's trying.

He doesn't tell her he knows it's not hard enough.

When he returns to America, he sits on the balcony of his apartment, wondering how he could ever explain this to Conner as he flips through the file J'onn sent him, finally bothering to read it. _Every time I see you, I see_ him _, Conner._ He practices in his head. _You never really needed me, Conner_ he thinks, because on some level, it's true. Wherever Conner is tonight, he's safe enough without him.

The rest of the month passes in a blur.

He wishes people "Happy Holidays!" and "Merry Christmas!" at The Planet.

He helps collect toys for the poorest children in Metropolis, so that they too can run down Christmas morning to a gut of presents.

He visits charities and saves drivers from the icy roads, he stands next to dying children in underfunded hospital and smiles the entire time, touching their chemo striped heads and bringing laughter to their faces for one final time.

One night he comes home to Lois cackling manically as she watches a man in a Santa suit stabbing a woman to death with antlers on the TV screen. He stands transfixed for nearly five minuets as the man continues to torture and maim throughout Christmas night.

"Are you going to stand there or sit down?" Lois asks finally, shoving a tin of Chex Mix in his face. "Lucy sent this shit. You should eat some before I finish it."

So he sits down and watches Santa Claus murder people and he eats his sister in law's Chex Mix and he asks Lois who they still have to buy Christmas presents for and he responds to a text from Jimmy and he wonders how similar he is to the man on the screen brandishing a bloody axe and he wonders what Conner's watching tonight (it's probably not _Silent Night, Deadly Night,_ but who the fuck knows. He sure doesn't).

After that night, he gets some vague idea in his head that he'll talk to Conner before Christmas Eve and will take him to meet his parents when they meet to celebrate, but he doesn't tell anyone so by the 24th the notion fades away. He even buys Conner a present, but he leaves it in the back of the closet, a tiny package in bright red paper to turn dusty and forgotten.

Clark can tell his mother wants to ask him a billion questions when they meet for Christmas Eve, but then she glances at his father and instead welcomes in Lois and him like he's been acting normal for the last few months, like this isn't the first time he's seen either of them since June.

He sits down at the table for dinner, in the same chair he sat in during childhood, and finishes the meal his mother made for them, says the words he needs to speak to look normal.

Until he can't take it.

He stands up.

Then he runs.

With every footstep, he could feel Lex's arm creeping up his back, his fingernails lightly scratching Clark's skin, breaking it ever so slightly from the Kryptonite. The electric shock hits him from the right side of his back to down between his legs, from the first place his hands struck to his center, then back again, pulsating back and forth.

He wonders what happened on the night he forgot, but Lex penetrates his mind again, coming in and out every few moments, reminding him of the violation. Back and forth, the thoughts of his missing day slip in and out, in and out, like a swing set, one moment the thoughts of the missing day flying high in his brain, then falling to the pit of his skull to be replaced by Lex and the things he did on that February night.

And eventually he arrives in Smallville, outside Lena's home, where he changes into Superman and finds her soon enough, sitting on the porch, watching the cars drive by.

"Lena!" he yells, shoving the file in her hands. "This is important, you need to listen to me."

"God, what the fuck are you doing?" She screams, sliding against the house and raising her fists to her face. Clark backs up and raises his hands in surrender.

"Sorry, sorry. Look, Lena, you need to contact this kid," he told her, pointing to the file. Lena scrunches up her eyes for a moment before looking inside the file.

"What the hell's so important about Conner Kent?"

"You need to tell him. Tell him about your mom, tell him who your father is, tell him everything. Please Lena, once you talk to him you'll understand."

"Is there an email in here?"

"Oh, I'm sure he has a Facebook," Clark dismisses. "His picture's in there. And what ever you do, don't tell him I sent you."

"Well, why not?" Lena asks, thoroughly annoyed. Clark smiles instead of answering, waving a hand and ascending in to the sky. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?"

Lena sighs, and, in curiosity, opens the file. Conner Kent. Formerly homeschooled. Age 16, Grade 11, taking American Literature, Pre-Calculus, AP U.S. History, AP Physics, Spanish 5, Introduction to Photography. Received Hepatitis B shot, received yearly health examination, parent/guardian: Clark Kent (Is that the name of her boss's son?), Student ID picture. Lena examines the file more closely and notices the letterhead is from a school called Happy Harbor High, located in Rhode Island.

So she googles the school and googles the boy. She sends him a message over Facebook, and reasons that if he responds, she'll investigate, but if he doesn't, she'll forget it.

 _I didn't use her as bait._

 _For all she's done to torture me over the years, I still ultimately respect her. When trying to uncover my "misdeeds" she's wasting her time, but she does it quite well._

 _Because of that respect, I sincerely hope she never thought her mistakes that night killed her child, and I certainly hope she realizes that strike was for her benefit._

 _It was another play against her, just as strong as hers against me. It's only coincidence I could get to Clark too that night._

 _She made herself my enemy through her fixation on uncovering "the truth" about me, and she's smart and brave enough to hold her own. She's even placed her own blows against me, and for that she has to pay. This was just my next move. This was my retribution._

 _I did need to distract Clark enough so that he wouldn't notice me exposing him to Kryptonite. Two birds with one shot to the side. The gunshot gave me the chance to land my metaphorical punch against her and immobilize my old friend with Kryptonite so I could do what I needed to with him._

"When the hell are we going to start talking about this?" Lois asks as she and Clark drive to Lucy's house the next morning.

"What do you want me to say? That I hate myself for what I did to Conner? That I mentally screwed up an innocent kid who's already had it hard enough? Cause that's all true, and I know it, I fucking know-"

"I meant Lex. What Lex is _actively doing_ to you right now by causing you to loose yourself."

"He's succeeded," Clark tells her after the longest silence in their life. "He's finally gotten to me. He's going to destroy me."

"Well good thing he hasn't gotten to me then." She replies almost immediately. "We're still two-for-two."

"What?" Clark asks.

"Well, he's already destroyed you. Okay. You're beyond hope. Thing is, he hasn't destroyed _me_ yet and he hasn't destroyed the Kid yet, so we still have a chance. And you know I don't need help - well, okay, if he's going to kill me I'd appreciate it if you'd stop him, but _emotionally_ I'm fine and apparently _you're_ the one susceptible to that sort of thing. Conner's got half your DNA, so he's going to need someone's help to keep Luthor from destroying him. You keep him from destroying himself, and between Conner and I we still have a chance at winning."

"This isn't a game."

"Lex plays it like one. So that means we have to as well. It's time to cut our losses – and if one of them is your soul, then fine. Where do we go from here?"

 _You tell Conner everything he deserves to know,_ he thinks to himself. _You apologize. You fix this._

Bruce loved other kids; they all did. Why could none of them love the kid enough to take care of him when made clear that he himself could not?

"Next time I see him," he said to her "After the press conference on Thursday. I'll find him to talk…Just to talk."

"Do you want me to go with you?" She asks.

"I don't know."

 _It shouldn't be this hard,_ Clark thinks to himself. The boy's like him, he's heard. "You'd like him," Diana told him last week, without the trace of white lies.

But…

Conner's also like an old friend. One he knew long ago, one he _loved_ like a brother.

One who tore open his own skin with kryptonite, maimed his wife and probably killed his unborn daughter. He tells himself not to worry; he doesn't see that part in Conner, the murder and the torturer.

Conner can be angry, from what he's heard. Just like Lex. Lex Luthor, unloved by his parents and everyone else in that damn town.

Clark doesn't see Conner at the press conference and before he can ask where he is, Clark's lying on the ground, Conner and Dick standing over him with the rest of the team, trying to push away the groggy, empty felling that follows memory loss.

So Clark tries very, very hard to gather enough courage to speak to him, especially since Conner and Dick took him and Bruce down while under mind control, and Clark can barely gather a handful of people who could do that. Not because, like if he were a little more like Bruce, any strategy to keep on their side, but because Conner deserved someone who didn't manipulate him for his own twisted sense of justice.

Clark _means_ to tell Conner…He doesn't know. A lot of things. _I'm proud of you, Conner. Look at all the things you did without me. I think we got off on the wrong foot - I don't avoid you because I hate you. I avoid you because, Conner, I…_

Instead he just talks about nothing important for a half an hour. I'm Clark, I'm Conner, nice to re-meet you. Don't worry that J'onn gave you the last name "Kent" because, really, the whole group should just be re-named "The Meddling League of America"

Not that Clark doesn't think Conner _deserves_ the last name Kent.

He just…there were other things that needed to be said.

 _…I can't believe how much you remind me of a friend who one day grew up to be my greatest enemy. A man who tortured me so much I can't hear his name without my stomach clenching in fear, and I can't even look at him without feeling physical pain. And sometimes I wish I had found you, weeks before , when you were too young to know what they were doing to you there and take you away from Cadmus. And then I'd expose you to gold kryptonite to take away any trace of my powers and find a good family somewhere. You'd be_ normal _and_ safe _, maybe even happy._

Thoughts like that were the ones Clark took care to not tell a soul. Batman might break his one rule and kill him. Lois would put him in a mental institution (his parents too, probably). Conner might at least be glad Clark's in the same room with him long enough to hear his explanation.

Clark had given Conner his number and address, in case he wanted to talk, and Clark starts to regret doing that two days later when his phone begins ringing and the number belongs to Happy Harbor.

"He's calling me…" Clark informs his wife, eyeing the phone like a bomb before gingerly picking it up and swiping the little green icon. Lois sits next to him and eyes the whole situation. Clark holds the phone to his ear but does not speak. He lets Conner do that.

"Hello? Is Clark Kent there?" Clark nods before remembering that phones just don't work like that.

"Yes," Clark squeaks out, glancing around the room. "This is Clark Kent."

"I just wanted to make sure things were, you know, with New Years and all."

"Ask him over for Thai food," Lois whispers, so Clark nods again, this time to someone who's actually here.

"We're having takeout if you want to come over," Clark told him uneasily. "My wife wants to meet you, I think."

"Sure. Half an hour," Conner responds, hanging up quickly.

"Do you think he knows we're married?" Clark asks suddenly. "That wasn't something I just dropped, was it?"

"You're naïve if you don't think he googled 'Clark Kent' the moment he got home."

Clark wrote about Lois in one of his columns; Lois had mentioned him multiple times. He even vaguely remembered writing "Clark lives with his wife, fellow Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane, in Metropolis" at one point for an online bio. Not to mention social media. No, by the time Conner called him, the kid had read every word Clark had ever wrote.

Conner shows up exactly a half an hour later, looking much the same as before in a black tee shirt and jeans. He recoils ever so slightly upon seeing Clark in civilian clothes, but covers his surprise and comes inside.

"This is Lois, my wife," Clark tells Conner awkwardly as the two shake hands.

"I've heard a lot about you, kid."

"Oh," Conner responds, putting his hands to his side. Lois glances around and shoves a takeout menu into Conner's hands.

"Tell me what you want."

The two quickly determine their meals before Lois calls in the order and leaves to pick it up, leaving Clark and Conner alone. "She seems cool," Conner says awkwardly.

Clark opens his mouth to make small talk, before deciding _why_ and instead shrugs and says "Does Lex Luthor scare you?"

"No," Conner responds without rest, not willing to show weakness.

"That makes one of us. Do you want him now? That was a joke," Clark speaks a little too quickly before sighing. "Lex and I were friends. He ran a plant outside the town I grew up in. And then he killed this classmate of mine and, I guess you know the rest."

The two remain silent for a moment before Conner asks, "Does Lex Luthor scare _you_?"

"Yes," Clark responds just as quickly as Conner did. "God yes. He's done too much to me, to people I love, to people who I've never met but just got in the way."

"Like what?"

But Clark just looks away instead of saying anything.

"I don't know why The Light took my memories away. But they did this to me before."

"Oh? How do you know?" Conner asks, "Cause if you remember it, they did a pretty a bad job."

"Mid May I missed an entire day. Lois caught me trying to go to work on a Saturday. She thought I was still on a trip for The Planet that Friday. I hope to God they were just testing the process on a non-human."

"Why are you telling me about this?"

"Lex _taunts_ me for it. Asks me what I'm forgetting whenever I see him, and I didn't even realize that he was connected until New Years. Who knows what he did to me there. We got that 'red sun' shuff out of your head, but he could take you away and put it back. Please Conner, be careful."

Conner shrugs non-committedly and excuses himself to the bathroom, just to have a moment.

The night is uneventful. Conner politely tells Lois and Clark about school and friends over coconut curry and pad Thai. Lois even asks Conner about M'gann and manages to tell them that they've been dating for months now, and yeah, he really likes her, what do you mean by 'is it serious?', of course I take our relationship seriously (though his cheeks turn pink and he stumbles over his words).

As Conner leaves for the night, Clark promises to call (he doesn't) and visit latter this week.

By the Thursday, Lois asks Clark if he's visited Conner yet. Clark sighs. "No," He admits.

"Maybe you should do that."

Clark should have taken the Zeta tube. Instead, he flew, which gave him the chance to float outside of the mountain for ten minutes before deciding that tonight's not the night, and that he should go back on Metropolis.

Two hours into patrol, he finds a child lying in a pool of it's own blood in a run down house in the suburbs. The body is so mangled, he can't tell their age, or even if it's a boy or girl.

The worse part is that they're still breathing. He runs the child to the nearest hospital, where the child is pronounced dead on arrival. He's able to catch the murder (the child's mother) and take her to the police station, but it really doesn't seem to matter because a kid's dead and knowing the mother it had a pretty miserable life before.

He calls Lois; She doesn't answer, but texts him "following up on a lead" a moment later, and he reasons that if it's at eleven at night, it's probably important. He thinks about calling his parents, but it's past ten in Kansas and he doesn't want to wake them.

So Clark finds himself hovering over Happy Harbor, watching Conner sit on the couch watching static.

But this time, instead of leaving, he enters the mountain. Conner jumps upon hearing Clark's entrance.

"Is everything okay?" Conner asks in a panic upon seeing him.

"Yeah," Clark nods. "Just give me a moment," He tells him, running off and changing into a tee shirt and jeans in a matter of seconds before grabbing the remote, switching to a real station and sitting as far away from Conner on the couch as he can.

"What's going-"

"Don't talk. I don't want to talk."

Conner doesn't talk. They sit in silence for an hour, watching the rerun unfold, barely smiling at the jokes and sitting so very still.

But then the show ends and Clark stands up to leave. "Don't tell Bruce I was here. I don't want his psychoanalysis."

"Who's Bruce?"

"Fuck," Clark winces. "Batman. Don't tell Batman."

"He checks the entrance logs."

"I know. I just don't want to encourage his…gloatish ravings. See you, kid."

And this continued. For a week. Clark and Conner would watch one or two reruns together in the night, barely sharing a word until Clark stood up to leave, saying, "See you, Conner," as he exits the mountain.

Seven days after the first visit, while Clark sits on the opposite of the couch, watching the TV, far away from Conner as per usual, Conner finally speaks.

"Uh, Clark?"

"Do you think of me as your father?" Clark asks, interrupting. Conner tilts his head in confusion. "I don't care. Either way. But if you want to call me-whatever you need, Conner."

"Okay, _Dad_ ," Conner groans sarcastically. "Why do you keep showing up in the middle of the night and watching sitcoms with me for an hour and then leaving?"

Clark doesn't answer. "Are you and your wife fighting?" Conner asks.

"No."

"Insomnia?"

"I don't know. Commercial's over; I love this part."

Clark and Conner don't speak again until the show is over, when Clark stands up, ruffles Conner's hair and leaves.

 _The two of them lie on the ground, barely breathing. Superman stood and ran to her; I took my chance and fell on top him, pinning him to the ground, he unable to move. I grasped the knife and plunged it inside, pulling down a long gash, listening for his moan of pain. The torture, the vengeance, feels so very good. Lane screams in shock, one hand reaching for her mouth, the other for her abdomen, right where the bullet hit._

 _I turn my attention back to her husband and straddle his waist, pushing all my weight onto his side to stimulate the bleeding. He turns his head to Lane and watches her in terror as I grab the vial and push my hand deep inside him, using a needle to take the blood far away from the Kryptonite as he screams in pain. "Don't," I tell him. "It will be over soon, my friend."_

 _"Why?" He gasps as I press harder into him, not a question but a desperate prayer._

 _"I **need** you," I answer in a long breath, watching his body seize as I watch the vial fill with blood. "I need this."_

 _I raise my arm to pull the vial away, standing to examine the blood. In that instant, he grasps his last bit of strength, grabs Lois and disappears._

 _For the first time, I don't care._

 _In two weeks, we crafted the perfect embryo, telling the others that we needed the human DNA to fix our sample's flaws. They didn't need to know that this wasn't about Superman anymore._

 _This was about two young men driving across Kansas highways as the sun began to set, two young men who could have created such a better world. If Clark ever realizes that I'm doing what the world **needs** me to do, he'd be honored and proud, I tell myself._

 _Not a week after that, I held my son in my arms for the very first time._

* * *

 **AN:** Este Capitulo estaba muy dificíl para escribir. Annnnd that's all the Spanish I know/can butcher. We done here. Back to idioma ingles. Hear that? That's the sound of every Spanish speaker in the world thanking me for ending the massacre of their language. I'm sure I confused some of the tenses…and sentence structure…. DX Like I attempted to say above, this was a hard chapter to write, and I waited so long between posting Question and Answer because I kept on polishing it. Especially changing the syntax. The individual wording is so important in this work and this chapter in general in order to allude to what happened to Lois (before Lex tells us so rudely) because Lois and Clark reeeeaaaaallllllyyyyyyy don't want to talk about it and, unfortunately for Clark's chronic avoidance, in order for Clark to figure out if he's Conner's dad or what he has to come to terms with the fact that Lex both took his chance of fatherhood away (because Lex was pissed at Lois - seriously, talk to people you're mad at, don't shoot them and cause them to have a miscarriage...) and then forced it back (because...). And I'm still not sure on some parts. But you just gotta post the shit before you hoard it till the end o'time. Tis writing.

And why was Jimmy scared of Osama bin Laden and al Quaida instead of ISIS? Because it was 2010, and that was a different time, one where we couldn't fathom a melted, racist Dreamscicle for president. Hillary 2016. _I promised myself I would leave politics out fo once, oops_ :X


	4. Promise

**A/N:** This is the last chapter.

 **Chapter Four**

"I don't know how to put this delicately."

"Then don't. What are you talking about?"

"Are you and M'gann having sex?"

"Wait-what?"

"If you are, you should use protection, though who knows, maybe you can't have kids because you're a hybrid or because you two are different species or something. But even so, use condoms for STDs, all right?"

"Clark, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Cadmus told you about sex, right? I don't have to explain that?"

"No! Don't! I know what sex is and I'm not having any! But if I start I promise to use condoms if you shut up!"

Every night after that, while they still sat mostly silent while watching sitcom re-runs, Clark would try to start a conversation of some sort with Conner, before it devolved into what Conner began to call 'sad attempts at parenting' when talking to M'gann or the rest of the team about it.

"Do you know how to catch someone when they're falling?" He asks another night.

"No."

"You can't just fly up into the air and catch them, if you do you'll slice them in half; you have pull them with you, slowing down as you descend. You fall with them.

"I can't fly," Conner tells him, and Clark opens and closes his mouth for a moment before responding. _Maybe you will someday_ , Clark thinks.

"Well, then you ask M'gnn to do it for you I guess," He dumbly suggests instead.

Most of the time they could get in a few moments of real conversations before Clark manages to make things awkward. Clark told him about his job as a reporter, his friends Jimmy and Cat, what Lois and him were investigating. Sometimes he'd talk about the things he did as Superman, and sometimes he would even mention something about growing up in Smallville. But not too often.

Conner mostly complains about classes, which he seems to hate just as much as he hates monkeys, Clark discovers. He talks about the Team and the kids from school. He talked about M'gann the most, until of course Clark tried to give him a sex talk.

On one of those dark nights, Conner asks Clark what would have happened if Clark found him instead of the team.

"I have thought of that."

"And?"

"Are you sure you want to know?" Clark asks, because he doesn't know if he should say but he doesn't want to lie. More than, anything, he hopes that Conner will shake his head and say "never mind."

But the boy looks at him, expectantly. And Clark says those things he shouldn't, the things he assures Conner he's never told a soul.

"Thank you," Conner says in reply as Clark finishes his mumbling.

"For being honest?"

Conner says nothing the rest of the night.

A few nights later, Clark gets a call from Bruce. "Hello?" Clark asks, picking up the phone.

"I'm in Metropolis. Lois says you're not home. Where are you?"

 _Okay Mom,_ Clark thinks to himself. "Why?" an irritated Clark asks instead.

"I might need back up in about ten minutes. Zeta records say you're in Happy Harbor. Is there trouble there?" Clark tries to ignore the fact that Bruce is more or less using the Zeta Beam records to stalk him.

"No, no trouble. I'll be there in a minute."

"Wait, are you in the Mountain? Can you wake Robin up and bring him?"

"Robin's injured," Conner interrupts.

"Robin's injured, apparently. Superboy's up."

"Robin's WHAT? Never mind, I'll deal with him later. Bring Superboy. LexCorp building. Five minuets."

Clark hangs up his phone.

"I heard the whole conversation," Conner assures him, tapping his ear and turning off the television. Clark shakes his head.

"I know Batman said to bring you, but Lex is dangerous. We can handle him."

"I know that. Trust me, I do. But he won't let anything happen to me. I'm practically your shield here."

Clark grimaces and shakes his head. "Stay here."

"Look, Clark, I know I messed up the bridge landing, and I went too far with those assassins in Qurac, but I've gotten better, okay? I can help."

"Conner…" Clark begins "You took _me_ down at New Years. I know you've gotten better. This is _Lex._ "

"Which is why I need to come," Conner reasoned before dropping his voice to that of a small whisper "He's my _father_ , Clark. He won't hurt me."

The words pierced Clark like Lex's kryptonite dagger in his skin. "Don't say that."

"What?"

"Don't ever say you're his. Got that? Ever. I can't have that…I can't have a kid with my face looking back at me and telling me he's Lex's son."

"Then who the fuck can I say my father is?" Conner yells, clenching his fists, not caring if he wakes up everyone in the mountain "Lex might be evil; I know that, but he's always been a better father than you have."

"I know that!" Clark snaps back, grabbing Conner's shoulders violently and pulling his face to look at him. For a short moment, fear flashes across Conner's face.

Clark loosens his grip.

"This isn't your fault," Clark says after a moment. "I'm sorry, Conner. I'm so sorry. If you see Lex as your father, then, well it's too late for me to do anything about that."

Conner's silent for a moment before speaking, gathering his thoughts. "If it makes you feel any better, I would have preferred you."

"I know," Clark lets go of Conner's shoulder and grabs his cape from the couch. "I haven't fought along side you before," Clark warns, but Conner knows this all too well.

 _"Recognized, Superman 01. Recognized Superboy B03"_

"You're going to have to do what I say because of that. I don't know your skills to well, and I know it's my fault, but I can't help that now." He continues as they arrive in Metropolis. "Just don't do anything unless I tell you too."

"All right."

"I mean it, Conner, disobey once and I send you home."

"I said all right!" Conner snaps as the two approach Batman. Even with Conner's impressive array of superpowers, Clark doubts the kid could find Bruce without him. Clark himself only barely spots him.

"Batman, what's the status?" Clark asks Bruce, trying to get a read on his mood. He's pissed, but Clark suspects Bruce is madder at Dick than at him right now.

"My source got caught up in some sort of Luthor deal. Thought you would want to help," Clark looks through the building and into Luthor's office to see him, Mercy and a thin, small woman in eveningwear.

"Is your source blonde? Red cocktail dress?" Clark asks. Bruce nods reluctantly. "Is she a friend?"

"I barely know her. I'm just tailing her," Bruce snaps as Conner begins to shift nervously as the three become silent.

"It looks like she's getting up to leave," Clark interrupts after a few minuets; Conner stands up and clenches his fists.

"Should we follow her?" Conner asks.

"Get down and remember what I told you," Clark says a little too forcefully, grabbing towards Conner as if to pull him back to his side. Conner's eyes narrow.

"I was just preparing to storm the place if we have to."

"We're not storming anything, get back down!" Clark exclaims angrily.

"Stop snapping at Superboy, Kal," Batman snarls, pulling himself to full height.

"I'm not snapping at anyone, I'm giving instructions!"

"You need to stop this. Stop taking out what happened to your daughter out on Conner, Clark, or I swear to God," Bruce continues, voice rising slightly. Conner whipping his head around to stare at the two of them again the moment after. Clark silences, shaking his head and clenching his fist slightly.

"She doesn't have anything to do with this," Clark responds after a moment. "Don't bring her into this; that's low and you know it," Conner continues to stare at Clark, tilting his head slightly.

"You have a daughter?" Conner asks quietly when Bruce doesn't respond.

"Lois and I lost a baby about a year ago," Clark explains quickly.

"I'm really sorry," Conner responds in shock after a long moment.

"Don't worry about it, Conner. It was a whole year ago now. Don't think about it."

"All right, I won't," Conner promises.

"Yes, just ignore our problems. That solves everything-"

"Batman, shut up. Superman doesn't want to talk about it."

Silence falls again.

But Conner does think and does worry, because Clark is _something_ to him and if his daughter had been born, maybe she would have been something to Conner too.

The three wait for a very long time, Conner not quite grasping what _for,_ until Batman sighs and calls off the operation.

"It's a bust. Sorry to wake you two up," Batman tells them. "I'm in town for company business until Tuesday; are you and Lois free for lunch, say, Monday?"

"I am," Clark responds "You'll have to text Lois to ask about her though. I don't even remember my own schedule most of the time."

Batman doesn't say goodbye, instead simply disappearing into the night. "Well, that was pointless," Conner muses while Clark stands up and narrows his eyes towards Luthor. The man stares back at him, as if knowing his old friend stood on the roof of a building across from him.

"He knows we're here."

"Is that bad?"

"Not yet-"

Clark cuts off his words mid sentence as a sound _wooshes_ past his ears before impacting with a loud, moist _squelch._

"Shit!" Conner yells, shooting up and stumbling backwards. Clark turns to see him standing a foot away, hands cupped around his side, blood pouring down his arms.

A high-pitched beeping floods the rooftop, followed by Luthor's voice _"The bullet's made of Kryptonite, Superman. Attempt to remove it and it will release more into his blood stream. Bring him to me and he will be left unharmed."_

Conner's blood began spilling onto the ground.

He was bleeding on Luthor's oriental rug within seconds.

"Quicker than I expected," Luthor mused stepping around the broken glass from Superman's quick entrance. He pulls a pair of tweezers from his pocket and stands over Conner, pulling the boy's hands away from the wound. Conner spits in his face.

"Stop that, son. I'm trying to help you," Lex commands, pulling out the bullet and placing it on the ground beside them. "Now-"

Before either can react, Lex unloads a clip into Clark's chest, knocking him to the ground. "-you should know that Conner was never _really_ in any danger. The kryptonite bullet would not deposit anything into his bloodstream; honestly, how would that even _work_?"

Clark's in too much pain to berate himself for falling for Lex's latest game, instead turning his eyes towards Conner, thanking any deity who listens that he has enough solar exposure to heal the wound even this late into the night.

"What are you playing at, Lex?" Clark gasps, curling into his chest, watching his blood spill across his arms.

"I'm _killing_ you, Clark. Please keep up."

Conner recoils slightly at Clark's name, attempting to pull himself up. "Lex!" He gasps, fingers grazing the hole in his chest where the bullet impacted his skin.

"I'll get to you in a moment," he briskly tells Conner, turning back to Clark.

"Do you love him?" Lex asks the broken and listless man, pinning him to the ground with his knee.

"Why do you care? You'll kill me either way."

"Oh, you're not going to tell me that _'I don't really love Conner like you do'_? I'm surprised, to be honest."

Clark chokes on some blood and spits it onto the floor. "What I said sixteen years ago, on the side of that highway when you almost killed that deer. I still believe it, Lex. Every word."

Lex looks into his eyes now, hanging over him so close Clark can hear his ragged breath, adrenaline from the fight not yet subsiding. Clark can't hear his heartbeat anymore (he's too weak), but he can feel Lex's pulse.

Never before has Clark been so utterly terrified.

Terrified because he could die. Lex unloaded too much Kryptonite in his chest; a headshot could take him out for good. Terrified because his child, ( _their_ child, rings a terrifying thought he doesn't have then energy to purge right now) watches him dying in from the corner, eyes wide open, staring at the scene unfolding in front of him.

"Look away" Clark tries to say to the boy, whispering in that quiet voice only the two of them can hear. Conner doesn't.

He just can't.

It's too horrifying not to watch.

Conner watches as the closest thing he has to a father is brutally cuffed to the desk, his clothes torn away, Lex searching him for any weapons or tricks for escape.

"Tell me one more thing then. Is he lucky to have me?"

"Yes," Clark sputters, weakly but without delay. Lex pauses in surprise, he and Conner both too shocked to move.

"What are you talking about?" Lex asks.

"He's the only child of mine you'll let live."

Conner tries to move away but Lex turns to him now, kneeling on the ground and placing out his hand for Conner to reach.

"I forgive you for betraying me, Conner," Lex whispers. "Come back here. Imagine what you and I can accomplish together. I'd tell the world you are my son, and we would rule it."

Conner spits on him again.

And while Lex recoils from the pure defiance, Conner grabs his hand, pulling him to the floor. He sprints to Clark, picks him up and, in his last burst of power not touched by the kryptonite, jumps out the window, burning half the road on a city block to slow himself and running. _Metropolis isn't safe_ , he reasons, not sure why, terrified of Lex catching them.

Clark mentioned Smallville, on one of those long, dark nights. Kansas. People there he trusted. He asks his communicator for directions and follows the course across the country.

"Where from here?" Conner asks groggily upon arriving in the small town.

"Down Main Street Right on highway 8," Clark answers, Conner staring at him, not expecting him to actually answer.

"Okay," Conner responds, heading in that direction. A little ways down the highway he notices a farm; the mailbox has the words 'Kent' printed in faded red paint. Conner takes it as a good omen and carries Clark to the door.

He knocks, then he rings the doorbell; eventually, an older woman, nearing seventy probably, answers the door in her bathrobe.

"I'm really sorry to bother you this late, but-"

The woman's eyes widen upon seeing Clark and she gasps slightly. "Oh God," she whispers, before turning inside and yelling "Jonathan! Jonathan, get down here, now!"

She places Clark's arm around her shoulder, helping Conner bring him into the house. They place him on the couch as a man (Jonathan presumably) rushes down the stairs.

Jonathan and the woman drape a blanket around Clark "Kryptonite?" Jonathan asks; Conner nods quickly. He offers Conner a glass of water; the woman is in the other room, on the phone with Lois.

Conner sinks to the floor by the couch, holding the glass to his chest as he tries to think. Part of Clark's chest is exposed; he recognizes the Kryptonite scar and quickly pulls the blanket over him further to hide the ugly, jagged line Lex used to create him.

For the first time, the first time in his _life_ , he cries, leaning against the couch Clark is lying on, wishing Lex had never even created him.

First for his father, for that man will never love him the way Conner does.

And then for himself.

Lex and Clark are both _alive,_ both _here_ , and Conner is still more or less an orphan.

The woman enters the room and reaches out to him, an attempt to comfort or console, but Conner freezes and she backs away. She lets Conner cry himself to sleep.

He wakes up to Lois shaking his shoulder hours later. "Hey, kid. You all right?" She asks, slipping beside him.

"Is he okay?" Conner asks, half asleep. He doesn't hear her answer, instead falling back into slumber.

The old woman wakes them up to pancakes in the morning, leaving Clark on the couch to recover, but serving Lois and him in the kitchen. They are silent for a long time, Conner having time to soak in his surroundings. Old house. Clean, but full of knick-knacks and mementos. Conner notices a picture on wall, a teenager beside the Jonathan and his wife when they were younger; if he didn't know better, he would have thought the kid in the picture was himself.

"Martha, do you think we need to call the League?" Lois asks, sliding the pancakes around her plate with her fork. Martha shakes her head.

"He should be fine, Lois. We've seen worse."

Lois nods in agreement and turns to Conner "You guys were at LexCorp, weren't you?" she asks quietly and shakes her head. "Damn it Lex," she mumbles, pushing the uneaten stack away.

"Conner, do you want something to drink?" Martha asks after a moment. Conner's eyes narrow slightly before Lois speaks up again.

"These guys are Clark's parents. They're safe."

"Oh," Conner responds with all the energy he could muster, "Sorry, I didn't know. No, I don't need anything."

"I'll have a coffee," Lois tells her, getting up and fiddling with the coffeemaker. "Conner, how do you take yours?"

"Um…I don't know. I've only had it a few times."

"That's depressing," Lois deadpans, pouring the black liquid into two mugs. Jonathan chuckles. She keeps the one that says 'Smallville Crows' on it, but adds a splash of milk and sugar to the mug with a faded Bugs Bunny on it and slides it to Conner.

The coffee tastes all right. Conner's phone begins to buzz as the four fall into silence.

"It's Batman," Conner tells them, panicked. Batman rarely sends communications unless it's an emergency.

"Hello?" Conner says into the phone tentatively. A low growl responds.

"Where are you, Superboy?"

"Uh," Conner quickly realizes that Clark promised Batman to bring him back soon. "Smallville?"

"Oh," Batman's voice softens, to Conner's surprise. "All right then, good. We don't need you for today's mission; it's just security detail. Have fun," Batman hangs up the phone.

"How pissed is he?" Lois asks.

"He told me to, ah, have fun?"

The three stare at Conner for a long moment. "Did you tell him you're beating up random people?" Lois asks.

"No?"

"Honestly, kid, I'm just as confused as you are."

Clark wakes up three hours later. Lois and Conner are on the ground, leaning against the couch in his childhood home, talking about…something. Her work, or his school maybe.

Half of him wants to pull the kid into his arms and promise him that he'll take care of him and the other half wants to run away and never see him again. He compromises sliding between them and placing an arm around Conner's shoulder, feeling too close and too distant all at once.

"Are you all right?" Clark asks.

"I hate Lex," Conner mumbles in response.

"Yeah. I hate him too," Clark agrees, turning to his wife and smiling for the first time in days. His mother hands the three of them each a mug while he notices his father siting in the old armchair and furtively examining Conner. "I'll try to be a better father now, okay?" he whispers, so quietly only the other Kryptonian can hear.

"I never really needed you," Conner responds after a moment, just as quietly. "Don't worry about me too much," And with a start, Clark heard the real message. _I forgive you. I understand. Let me help you._

Clark holds Conner against the place in his side where Lex cut a long gash in his side nearly a year ago.

"Thanks for taking care of us," Clark says, pulling his mother into a hug.

"Visit more often, okay Clark? You too, Conner," Clark's mother lets go of him and embraces Conner as well, and while he doesn't quite know how to react, he appreciates it all the same.

Clark takes Lois back to Metropolis before accompanying Conner back to the Mountain. Batman and the team are inside debriefing.

"Oh hey, deserter's back," Wally jokes, swallowing a Lightspeed bar and wagging the rapper at Conner. "Want one? It's your favorite flavor, Monkey C-"

"No."

"I thought you two were in Smallville," Bruce asks them, eyes narrowing and turning to Clark, probably noticing how absolutely dreadful he looks.

"We had some more trouble with Luthor than originally thought."

"In Smallville?"

"No, in Metropolis," Clark snaps at Bruce. "Then we went to Smallville. I'll see you later this week, okay Conner?"

"Yeah, see you," Conner responds, twitching his hand in a motion implying a small wave as Clark tries to leave as quickly as possible.

"How was…whatever just happened?" Wally asks, flopping onto the couch next to Robin, who's wearing civvies and an arm brace. "Did you guys finally get enough to nail him for something?"

"No," Conner sits on the floor, watching the others pull out a video game and begin to play.

 _Do you want to talk about it?_ M'gaan asks in his head. He flinches slightly, and then calms himself. She wants to make sure he's okay without letting the others know. It's okay. She's being kind.

All the same, he doesn't want to talk to her about it.

 _No_ , he thinks back.

Batman doesn't ask if he wants to talk, instead pulling him aside and forcing it anyway.

"I know you and Clark have been speaking with each other. You see each other everyday."

Conner holds back the tiniest smirk. "Got that from the security cameras, I guess. He told me he doesn't talk to you about me," Batman held his blank expression.

"What do you talk about."

"I dunno."

"I see from the video that you two talk," Batman presses

"School and stuff, okay?" Conner snaps slightly. "What's on the TV, what's on the news. Once he tried to give me a sex talk; that went as well as you'd expect. Nothing of interest."

Conner quickly frees himself from Batman and joins his friends on the couch

Clark comes to see him that night. He switches the channel and sits next to Conner like every other night that month.

They don't talk about what happened at LexCorp, or anything else for that matter. At least for a little while.

"Batman asked me what we talk about,"

"What did you say?"

"I told him it's none of his business."

Clark smiles sadly and shakes his head. "He last saw his parents when he was eight, you know. They were murdered. Right in front of him."

"I didn't. Why are you telling me this?"

"Why do you _think_?"

Eventually Clark reaches into his pocket and pulls out an envelope. He stuffs it into Conner's hands. "This is Lena Summer's address."

"Who's she?"

"I think you can trust her."

On a hunch, Conner pulls out his phone and finds a message in his Facebook inbox ('hey') he thought must have been a mistake when he received it. The red haired girl smiled at him from across cyberspace. He asked her 'what's up?' and put the phone away before trying to talk again.

"I know you told me not to think about it, but-" Conner stumbles over his words for a few moments before gathering his footing and speaking in a rushed tone "If you could chose between me and-"

"Don't," Clark cuts him off, whipping his head to him. "Don't say that, don't think that. Ever. All right? There was never a choice between you two, don't torture yourself choices that would have never happened."

"Don't tell me it wouldn't have been better-"

"I would have wanted my daughter to grow up with an older brother who loved her and would have taken care of her if something happened to Lois and I. If I could take how I treated you back I would, Conner, I swear."

"How close were Lex and you?"

Clark never wants to think about Lex again. He doesn't want to give Conner the truth, or even tell Conner he has an older sister in the same grade as him. Conner's his, and every one of those answers would be admitting he's Lex's too. But he answers because he knows Conner deserves it, and he lost the chance to create a good truth for him seven months ago. "He was my very best friend," Clark begins, trying to convince himself that this pain of remembering Lex is less than nothing in comparison to what he put Conner through. "I thought he was a good man. Maybe then he was."

Conner puzzles over Clark's remarks for a brief moment before daring to ask his last question. "What did you tell him?"

"What?"

"You didn't just tell him any kid would be lucky to have him for a father, did you? You said something else, on that night you two were talking about."

The show ends. Clark turns off the TV and gets up to leave.

For a moment, Clark Kent is back on the floor of the Fortress of Solitude at midnight on the Fourth of July. He's staring at Conner's DNA results and feels a jolt at the bottom of his stomach and his empty arms ache, needing someone to grab onto. Then he's a fifteen year old boy in Kansas, and he's promising his friend, his confidant, the closest thing he ever has had and ever will have to a brother the promise he can barely bring himself to show but has always kept.

"I _do_ love you, Conner. I always did, from the very beginning. I swear."

 _I heard the call late into the night, mumbled words on the other side of a cell phone. Superman found out about Cadmus._

 _Clark's lying on the table, cape grasped around him like a blanket, holding the tiny child to his chest. I reach over and stroke his hair, pulling strands out of his face. A genomorph is holding his brain in a state of flex nearby._

 _His eyes flutter open; "Where am I?"_

 _I smile and continue running my fingers across the child's cheekbone. "You don't remember? I suspected temporary amnesia would be a side effect of the procedure I used to revive you, though I had hoped it would not," Clark turns his head slightly, first to me and then the little boy in his arms._

 _"Keep him asleep," I order softly. "I'm Lex Luthor, your best friend. You really don't remember me?" Clark shakes his head and I slide my hand to his shoulder and sigh. It's working; the Light can use him for their needs, and I can use him for mine. His memories are nothing but what I shape them to be, as all he remembers is that my voice, once, long ago, belonged to the one person he trusted more than anyone else on the planet "Explaining this…you need to know, Clark - that's your name, it's Clark - you need to know, but it will be hard for you to hear and understand._

 _"A man named Paul Westfield started all this. He though it was for the good of the world. I'll explain his reasoning again to you when you're more awake, conscience enough to understand the science. In the end I couldn't stop him; no matter what he would have done it - will you trust me, Clark?" The lies slip from my tongue, cascading across the room and because Clark's so defeated, so weak and his mind is so empty he_ believes _them. I can see it in his eyes, his muscles relaxing ever so slightly, the unconscious memory of our broken trust._

 _I move my hand to the boy's head and unknot his hair. "But a true clone wouldn't work, and again I will explain when you're alert, but it was determined that the clone needed half of your meta-human DNA, half of a normal man. Westfield wanted to use his own, but he's mad, Clark! He's actually insane! He would never love…" I trail off and watch Clark's eyes lead to the boy buried in his chest._

 _"You replaced it with your own?" Clark chokes out, the first words he's spoken upon waking, placing my puzzle pieces in sequence just as I predicted._

 _"It's strange, I know. But if I couldn't stop his creation, at least I could give him a chance. Create a child who would be loved by both his parents, not controlled and abused by one and kept from the other," I conjure the needed tears and then hold them back. "I'll keep you and him safe, Clark. You're my oldest friend, and he's-" I break off, holding my hand to my mouth and swallowing, just in time to hide the smile creeping across my face._

 _"What's his name?" Clark asks as the boy stirs in his arms, and before I have to think up an answer, tell him I've barely seen the boy myself, that Westfield's kept him from me, Clark thankfully gets distracted, sitting as the boy stretches._

 _"Hey, kiddo," Clark tells the boy as the two stare at each other. "It's me. Remember me?" Clark holds the child's head in his palm. "How old his he, Lex?"_

 _"He's been subjugated to accelerated growth cycles. Physically, mentally and emotionally he's the equivalent of a two year old. He's barely met you."_

 _The boy reaches for the cape and examines it. "You can trust me, okay? You can trust Lex and I."_

 _The child smiles at Clark and whispers, very, very quietly "Superman?"_

 _"That's also you," I tell Clark, and he nods at the boy._

 _"Yeah, yeah that's me," he tells the boy nervously before steadying himself on the gurney. "God," he gasps under his breath, pulling one hand tighter around the boy and clenching the other hand around the metal, nearly crushing it._

 _"Go back to sleep," I tell him, carefully pushing him back down. The boy's eyes widen in fear; I reach for his head and stroke his hair slightly. "Your Dad's going to be fine," I tell the boy as I kneel to his eye length. "Say goodnight."_

 _The boy nervously turns to Clark and then to me before whispering "Goodnight," very quietly. I wait for them to fall back asleep before I pick the boy up and leave the room, carrying him back to his pod. The test on Clark's mind worked._

 _Clark awakens and escapes, regaining his most of his memories (though, as a saving grace, not the ones of tonight, never, as long as he lives, the ones of tonight)._

 _"Fuck!" I scream, throwing a glass vial against the door._

 _I_ had _him. He took every phrase of mine like gospel, drank every word like wine. And I'll never bring him to that place again. He'll never return to me._

 _There's only one option now, and it breaks me._

 _I never wanted to kill my best friend._

 _Clark and I could have ruled the world._

 _And yet he haunts me by his very existence._

 _No matter._

 _I watch the child breathe in and out through the window in his pod, his rhythm calming my nerves, the last piece of Clark Kent, Superman, my one equal, still pure and untainted._

 _I have something better._

 **Author's Note:**

"Gethsemane" is the name of the garden were, according to the Christian Bible, Jesus prayed the night before he was executed and where, ultimately, Judas performed the "ultimate betrayal" and turned Jesus over to the Romans, who then painfully and horribly executed him. I named the story after that place because, in Lex's eyes, what Clark did to him by ending their friendship was also the "ultimate betrayal". In addition, many Superman stories are based in a Christ allegory (Superman and Jesus both being "saviors" from otherworldly realms who live among us, but are not quite like us, blah, blah, blah), which I purposefully perverted and inverted in this work. Here, Lex Luthor, instead of being in opposition to Christ (the devil, in a way) is, in his eyes, a "God amongst Men". Lex creates life through the Cadmus experiments (he's "playing God"). His thoughts are written in first person, while the rest of the story is written in third person omniscient (the "god tense"). He even "sacrifices" his son by letting him live amongst the Justice League.

In layman's terms, Lex has gone cuckoo bananas and has an inflated sense of self importance. He thinks he's saving the world by ruling it, when instead he's just fucking evil.

That's just the theological side of this story, however.

I didn't write this story to teach you losers about the bible. I grew up Christian but am now largely a-religious, so I don't care if anyone understands the bible religious stuff. Initially, I just kind of thought up this story after watching Young Justice and also writing a spec pilot about clones in the same time period (pilot still not finished, but useless non-money making fan fic is, so yay?) and my pilot thoughts bled into my young justice thoughts and POOF I shat out this story. Back then, it was just a story, without themes or imagery or anything. But then it morphed into something different.

To be crass, this story is an allegory for rape.

What happened to Clark and Lois on "that day last February" was not actually "rape" of course (rape, by my definition, is forcing someone to have sexual intercourse), but is a form of sexual assault. And how the other characters treat Clark in regards to the consequences of that night are how many sexual assault and rape victims are treated. Bruce acts how a normal person would - IF this entire thing was consensual. The girl he was dating when, if he was a normal kid, Conner would have been conceived assumes the worse from him without giving him a chance to explain himself. Bibbo actually sympathizes with him, but it costs Clark his masculinity. And et cetera.

So yeah, if you thought parts of this sounded like sexual assault, that was on purpose. I'm not def not the first to draw this comparison, but I am the only one to do it to MY unique specifications :D I hope you…is enjoyed the right word? I hope you found reading this an experience worth having. Expect the aforementioned sequel around Christmas or Spring Break. It's shorter and mostly written, but I need a University break to edit it properly.


End file.
